Survey: Sacramento Judicial Diversity Trails Behind State

The four-county Sacramento area has 86 superior court judges. Twenty-four of them, or about 27.5%, are women. Statewide the percentage is higher - just over 32% of superior court judges in California are women. That's up from 27% in 2006.

Meanwhile, white people make up 75% of Sacramento area judges...statewide it's less - about 70%.

Judge David Rubin is with the Judicial Council, the agency that govern's California's court system and released the survey. Rubin is also a San Diego Superior Court Judge. He says diversity on the bench can take a while.

"It's dependent on the population of lawyers in the area that are applying. It depends on...you can only replace judges at the rate that people retire or leave the bench, which is a slow process."

This is the eighth year that the legislatively-mandated survey has been released. Increasing diversity on California's bench is a major goal of the Judicial Council.